If there is anything that sparks my imagination it is Star Wars. I have owned all the movie trilogy many times over, and in September I will fork over the $100 to pick up the first collection of Star Wars in DVD. It is one of the most requested DVD series that has never made. While George Lucus had decided in the dark years of the late 90s to hold off putting out the series on DVD until AFTER the current trilogy was completed and out of theaters, something changed and they are being released a year early.
The DVD set contains the Remake Trilogy, called the Special Addition. If you are a fan * And I suspect there are tons out there, maybe even reading another of my long articles*, you ponied up to see the re-release in the theaters. Added stuff, more dialogue, and Jabba introduced in A New Hope, were all added to make the story line more understandable. I'm not sure how added new panels of landscape in some scenes is helping the storyline, but I digress.
Now, with the recent release of the Epi. III title, I expect that the hype will start in ernest. Fans that waded throught The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones have been waiting for this movie. This is it baby! The death of whiny, oh-so-annoying Anakin and the birth of Darth Vader, the coolest of the cool. The original Man in Black.
The story takes place a little while after the Attack of the Clones, where we find that Palpatine has decided not to relenquish his emergency power granted to him by the Republic. Instead, he decides that the Jedi are traitors and sends out his army of the republic to crush them all. They scatter, people die, and we meet Chewbacca. I can't go into any more, just because anything else would be heresay. I will say that the new baddie, General Grievious, looks awesome cool, at least in the comics.
With the introduction of what had to be the most annoying character in the Star Wars universe, the Gungans, to the mis-casting of some of the principle leads * Hayden Christianson*, people might not be as drawn to this movie. I belong to a chapter of the Fanforce.net, and the discussion is back and forth. Will we line up like we did for Eps. I and II? Probably. As I stated back in the article, this is the movie that people ahve waited for. Like many pop icons that reach a certain level, Darth Vader has passed into History. Darth Vader is in it for the long run, still being one of the most memorable villians.
I have read some scripts for this movie, and have to say, in content, it seems a lot better than the other two. There were things about the other two that I enjoyed, but there were a lot of things that just didn't do it for me. I personally don't like Hayden, and his acting in these movies are sub-par. Natalie Portman's performances can grate on me if I've had a bad day.
There is only one other thing I would like to bring up. The continuity. We know that The Emporer sends out the Clone Army to wipe out the Jedi, and we know that in this movie, Luke and Leia are born. We are introduced to Bail Organa *played by Jimmy Smits*, and he takes Leia. We also find out that the Death Star starts to be built at the beginning of the movie. They revealed it's plans during Esp. II. My question is, by the time Luke is in his late teens and starts on the adventure to be a Jedi, the Death Star is JUST nearing completion. Now ,did it take them 18 years to build one, and if so, how did the second one get built so fast? These are, unfortunately, only questions that George Lucus can answer, or a totally huge fan.
So, will you see it?